A blockchain is a type of computing architecture that enables a peer-to-peer distributed (shared and replicated) database or ledger, not controlled by a single organization or entity, but many different ones. Spanning across a network of independent machines, the configuration permits the nodes to reliably track and maintain the state of information in a system. In doing so, blockchain enables the cost-efficient creation of business networks without requiring a central point of control. This configuration operates in contrast to traditional database-oriented systems, where independent parties maintain their own systems of record and reconcile updates with one another in inefficient and sometimes complex inter-organizational processes, which requires the services of an independent, trusted third-party administrator.
The complexity of a modern online multiplayer environment places an enormous demand on the underlying technology and infrastructure used to support the gaming functions. While a shift to a predictive physics model has helped some of the physics-based calculations to the client side, the current state of the gaming environment still requires a game server to act as an authoritative unit to create, manage, and validate in-game events and actions. Many of these events are inconsequential after a relatively short amount of time, for example, tire tracks left behind another player's vehicle in a car driving game type environment, however, such trivial game changes still require a great deal of computing resources and low-latency infrastructure to maintain those small details in synchronization between players to achieve an immersive environment. When a game server becomes overloaded, the players' expectations are not always met, and the perception of quality suffers immediately.
The timeline for online gaming is parallel to the timeline for distributed computing. When dumb terminals were connected to mainframes and minicomputers, multiplayer games sent the gamer's controller inputs and waited for the response, which would then be rendered on the screen by the game engine. All in-game processing was handled server-side. When client/server became popular, and some operations were performed on the user's computer hardware, game consoles and the computers began handling more of the collision detection and graphical rendering for massive multiplayer online role-playing (MMORPG) and first-person shooter (FPS) games. Today, a system of record and engagement modeling in computing is used where the responsibility for driving the user experience is offloaded to the end device. Online gaming has taken a similar approach with the predictive physics approach, where the client's hardware and software predicts how the server will respond, and presents that to the user immediately while it waits for the server confirmation. This provides that a button-press is reflected in gameplay without delay, delivering a single-player reaction time with multi-player interactions. This is the current state-of-the-art, but gamers are a demanding increased optimization for online games, and any new game that does not use predictive physics would likely be criticized for having clunky unresponsive controls.